


stand there and stare (my world divides)

by avatarkadaj



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Grooming, Hurt No Comfort, Insanity but Treated Seriously, Masturbation, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Pseudo-Incest, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23646664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avatarkadaj/pseuds/avatarkadaj
Summary: Mao is a monster but that's because C.C. made him that way. She only has herself to blame.
Relationships: C.C./Mao (Code Geass)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 11





	stand there and stare (my world divides)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a ? character study? Word vomit? About Mao and C.C.'s relationship because I'm literally the only person to give a shit about Mao but I'm also 10 years late to the party. Enjoy.
> 
> Warning! This story does involve the following themes: CC grooming Mao, Mao (who's apparently 17, wtf?) having sexual thoughts about C.C. and masturbating, incestuous undertones, but they do not have sex. If those make you uncomfortable, please turn away.

C.C. picked Mao because it was convenient. No one would miss an orphan boy. Really, he would be as lonely as she was. A child is easy to manipulate, a child signs a contract without asking any questions. Geass sounds _cool._ Gifts are _nice._ C.C. is a _nice lady who spends time with Mao._

She was an awful little immortal witch (but hopefully, not immortal for long.)

\---

Mao’s Geass was too strong for him. It wasn’t so much _reading minds_ as it was _perpetual thought projection in a giant radius around him._ And little boys look at _everything._ Children are curious and want to know. Perpetual use, even by accident, makes things… chaotic. It breaks the dam. The Geass goes haywire and then, well, Mao can’t be in public anymore.

Because it hurts. Because he hears everything everywhere and it never stops. Things that are good and bad and private and open and adult and violent and perverted and its _never going to stop._ It’s loud and it _hurts._

“Just listen to me, Mao.”

And he does, just like that.

Because he can’t hear her thoughts like everyone else. And that makes her special. That makes her so unique and different. It makes her comforting. It makes her home.

Mao is a good boy, really. But there’s strength in power and power corrupts and _absolute power_ corrupts _absolutely._

A good heart and a strong, consuming power doesn’t make for a good mind.

He breaks.

\---

Isolation.

Initially, it was logical. Being around other humans is too much for him. It hurts him. C.C. removes him from the source of pain, so that he might be able to control his Geass. If he isn’t hurting, he is stabilized. With time, he will be fine, and then he will fulfill his end of the contract and she will get her wish. It’s simple, really. It’s easy.

She’s in far too deep before she realizes she is going to drown them both.

Mao is a happy child. He is artistic and creative. He is smart and likes games. She parents him, because she has to. Someone has to look out for him, and she’s there. 

Mao makes things for her. Paintings and drawings.

“Thank you, Mao.”

He beams at her excitedly every time.

Mao is good at his studies. She teaches him language, reading and writing, and history. He loves listening to her, hangs on her every word. Mao writes stories for her, trading in the favor for the times she told him stories before bed tucked to her chest.

“Good job, Mao.”

He doesn’t have much frame of reference for things. Mao thinks she’s the most beautiful woman in the whole world. She’s the smartest and the nicest and the best. He tells her so.

“Thank you, Mao.”

Mao grows up very quickly. Maybe it just seems fast to her, because it’s just the two of them for the most part. And she’s lived through so many human lifetimes, they all come as a blur. Born, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, death. Over and over and over.

Her easy answers to his questions become a lot more difficult. Mao is a smart boy, and as much as she steels her expressions, he knows when he’s being lied to. C.C. stays honest as much as she can. She keeps herself a mystery.

\---

Mao is exposed to a lot of things in the world because he can’t help it. He asks about the things he hears, C.C. does her best to answer. She is his frame of reference, his teacher.

“What’s _violence_ mean?”

“It’s when you hurt someone intentionally, Mao.”

“What’s _abuse_ mean?”

“It’s a pattern of behavior to physically or psychologically hurt someone against their will.”

“What’s _psychologically_?”

“It has to do with the brain.”

And so on.

He’s reaching puberty and the inevitable questions come up. Of course, he learned long ago that he was a _boy_ and C.C. was a _woman_ and he knew those things of course.

She expects the questions about sex. Those are easy to handle. What is it, how is it done, does it hurt, why do you do it, etc. Those are easy. It’s just basic biology. It’s clinical. He watches her when she talks, he wonders what she’s thinking.

The questions get harder as he gets older, when he’s almost a man. An adult. The questions get so much harder.

“What’s _marriage,_ C.C.?”

“It’s when a man and a woman love each other very much and decide to spend the rest of their lives together.”

“What’s _love,_ C.C.?”

She hesitates.

She doesn’t know.

Mao doesn’t _know_ that she doesn’t know, he waits patiently for her answer. He thinks she’s being thoughtful, choosing her words carefully. (She is, but not for the reason he thinks.)

“Love is… a lot of things. It’s very complicated. It’s taking care of each other and spending time together and enjoying each other’s company. It’s happiness. It’s a promise.”

It sounds poetic. (It sounds ridiculous.)

But Mao listens, enraptured. That does sound very nice. He nods.

“I understand.”

He doesn’t.

Neither does she.

\----

Mao loves C.C. Mao likes spending time with her. C.C. has spent all this time taking care of him and well, isn’t it time he took care of her now? He’s all grown up!

(Physically, maybe. Emotionally, not.)

Mao loves C.C. He enjoys her company. She’s quiet, but that’s so nice. Everyone else is so _loud_ and intense and awful. But not C.C. She’s calm and beautiful and peaceful. She’s mysterious.

Mao loves C.C. She makes him very happy. And she’s always happy with him! She always says _Thank you, Mao_ and _You’re a good boy, Mao,_ and _Stay with me, Mao, stay close to me._ They’re together all the time. Her smile is very pretty, he thinks she should smile more.

Mao compliments her all the time. He tells her how nice she looks and smells. He continues making things for her. She accepts them all with smiles and thank yous.

\---

C.C. hoped that, maybe, he wouldn’t be interested in those sorts of things. She had raised him away from the world, just on the edge of it, so maybe, their concepts wouldn’t stick with him. (Even when he went in the world, her calming ethereal voice was playing in his ears over the headphones. Always with him, kept away from the world.)

He wasn’t _violent._ He wasn’t _abusive._ He wasn’t selfish or uncaring or rude. Mao was… childish, sure. She hoped, naively, he would stay that way forever. Or, at least, until it came time to fulfill the contract. Then he could be whatever, it wouldn’t matter because she wouldn’t be there anyway.

But, inevitably, he did become interested in love and marriage and romance. And. And sex.

He’s so painfully blunt about it. If she really cared to be embarrassed, she would be. Instead she just stares up into the night sky.

“Could _we_ have sex, C.C.?”

“No, Mao.”

He usually takes no for an answer. He’s very good at listening to her.

But he insists. He leans closer into her space. She hears the grass shift and be crushed under his weight but doesn’t look at him.

“Why, because we aren’t married?”

It’s such an honest question.

She breathes out through her nose.

“No, Mao, you can have sex with people you aren’t married to.”

He nods. She sees it out of the corner of her eye.

She hopes he drops it.

He doesn’t.

“Have you done it before?”

“Yes, Mao.”

He considers that for a moment.

He doesn’t ask _who,_ thank god. It’s been way too long to remember. (That sort of thing stopped interesting her decades ago.)

“I would like to do it with you, C.C.”

He says it so plainly, so purely. It’s obvious.

“I know, but the answer is no, Mao.”

She looks at him, after that. She hardly tells him no like this. She usually does what he wants, makes him happy. He doesn’t have much else. And if she indulges his every wish, he’ll do what she wants in the end. Equivalent exchange, all actions toward a final result.

He looks hurt. His eyes are sad.

It doesn’t bother her, but the expression is new. This is new territory. She doesn’t know how he’ll behave.

She placates him.

“It wouldn’t be right, Mao. I raised you,” she explains, turning toward him.

(But then, nothing has been right about any of this, she thinks.)

She looks him in the eyes, like when she tries to make a serious point.

“So?” he asks.

“I’m like your mother,” C.C. answers, bluntly.

That should put an end to it.

“So what?” he brushes it off, shrugs, raises a hand palm up.

She sighs, closes her eyes a moment. “That’s not what mothers do.”

“You taught me everything else,” Mao counters. “Why not this too? You’ve given me everything.”

His line of reasoning is sound. Childish. It makes sense in an immature way. It’s too simple.

“Mao, we can’t. That’s final.”

Her tone gets an edge to it. She’s immortal, she’s learned patience but. Sometimes enough is enough.

(It’s not a matter of _can_ or _can’t_ , it’s a matter of want. But she keeps it to herself.)

He listens, looks away then. He toys with a patch of grass.

He doesn’t get it, not really. He doesn’t get _why._ They’re different, he can see that much. So what does _right_ or _wrong_ matter. He doesn’t get it.

She rests back down on her back, looks back up at the sky.

“C.C.—”

“Mao, I said –”

“I love you.”

C.C. stares at the sky some more.

Mao watches her.

It’s the first time he’s said it. Ever. To anyone.

It’s the first time she’s heard it in a long time. A long, long, long time.

When she turns to look at him again, he’s close. Too close. His face is right against hers; they’re nose to nose.

He’s going in for the kiss.

She pulls away.

“C.C., don’t you love me too?”

It wasn’t an outcome she had planned on. But it was one she should have seen coming.

“Not like that,” is what she can manage.

It buys time. It lets him down easy. It placates him.

He’s not happy when he lays down to sleep beside her, curled to her chest. She’s gotten good at reading his body language from all these years. He knows what others are thinking, so he always puts himself on display. He’s sort of pouting, but he’s not _angry._ Anger is unpredictable, disappointment can be assuaged.

(He will get over himself.)

He covers his face, closes his eyes.

(She didn’t say _no._ )

\--

Mao doesn’t let it go. He works himself into an infatuation. He thinks about it all the time.

Marriage and love and sex with her.

Mao feels shame over it, at first. Thinking about her when she had rejected the idea of a _them._ But he couldn’t help it! She was perfect! They were _meant to be together._ He had always had her! It made sense, then, that they should let their relationship come to the next step, it’s natural conclusion. She was his everything.

Besides she was so beautiful. Her hair was long and lovely, unnaturally green but even more beautiful that way because she was like a goddess. Her eyes, framed by long black lashes, were warm and ancient. And her body… well… he hadn’t seen her naked before, but he could imagine.

And he did.

And it was becoming rather often.

His preferred method of dealing with arousal was touching himself with his headphones on. It felt sacrilegious somehow but it just… felt so nice.

(No way he would let anyone else touch him. Disgusting. He didn’t love anyone else and his _first_ should be with C.C.)

So, he would find somewhere private, put the headphones on, close his eyes.

_Just listen to the sound of my voice, Mao._

Mao touches himself over his clothing, thinking about her, thinking it _is_ her. He’s always purposeful about it, because she would be, he thinks. Straight to it, he undoes his pants without too much foreplay.

_Good job, Mao._

He thinks about her praising him while he touches her, imagines how soft and warm she would feel under him. He would do a good job, making sure she feels good too. Make sure she feels _better_ even! Thinks about how he would bury his head against her neck and kiss her there while she purrs praise into his ear.

_Thank you, Mao._

He doesn’t last long, not really, when he thinks about her thanking him after. When she’s panting softly beneath him and flushed in the face and he’s done a _good job_ and done _so well_ and made her so happy, made her finish around him. It always drives him over the edge, thinking about coming with her and her saying thank you. Because he’s given her something special and made her happy and that’s what he wants. He wants it so much.

He comes over his hand, cleans himself off. He avoids C.C. for a while, a healthy amount of time, slinking around like a cat. He comes back like he hasn’t done anything.

(Fantasies only keep the monster at bay.)

\--

It’s not like C.C. doesn’t notice. She does. It’s not hard to think of why he started wandering off, being gone for a while and finally returns while avoiding eye contact. She reads him like a book.

There’s just nothing to be done about it.

She figures, he can fantasize for now. That’s fine. That’ll be a healthy release for him.

C.C. can’t do it with him. She’s not going to.

It’s not a matter of want or desire. (Though, she doesn’t _want_ to do it either.) She toyed with the idea. After all the other things she’s done – and not done – for him, it wouldn’t be out of character to fuck him. She could give it to him. Teach him that like she did everything else like reading and history and intellect and combat. She wasn’t _really_ his mother. She’s snagged all hope of normal socialization away from him with that damn Geass. It made sense he had imprinted and grown to feel this way. Maybe he would get it and be done with it.

But then he had said _I love you._ That sealed the nail in the coffin. She couldn’t.

He was dangerously close to being unable to fulfill his contract. She hasn’t told him yet, what it is. The wish. The thing he exchanged the Geass for.

If he believed he loved her and declared his love, whatever, the feelings could be outgrown. If they don’t consummate whatever relationship he’s envisioned then, he could move on. Things would change. Settle into dust. And then when he was capable enough, she would ask for her wish.

He would get over her.

So, C.C. let him fantasize, averts her eyes, pretends she didn’t know.

\--

Later, she would realize, one of her biggest mistakes was underestimating Mao.

His intensity. His sincerity. His capacity for violence. His lack of self-control. The corruption. The warped sense of reality.

If Mao was a monster, it was one of C.C.’s own making.

It becomes clear when she tries to tell him the terms of the contract, about her wish, and though she knew he tried his best, he can’t fulfill it. It’s time for her to go now.

Mao’s face contorts between a pout and disbelief. Like he can’t make up his mind as to how he feels, if he believes it at all. “C.C., you can’t leave me. We’re perfect for each other. You made me perfect for you.”

“I’m sorry, Mao,” she says quietly.

But she isn’t sorry; the reality is what it is. There’s nothing to be done now. She can’t wait for his lifetime to be over to try again, and she can’t sit here and pretend to love someone she doesn’t for decades.

“But I love you, C.C. and I know deep down you love me too. That’s why you’ve taken such good care of me,” Mao protests, moving closer.

She attempts to step out of his way, out of this place, but he’s blocking the exit. She’s caged in.

“Mao, we agreed on a contract. I have to go now,” C.C. chides, trying to put on that maternal tone again. The one that soothes him, that makes him listen.

Mao reaches out, grabs her, holds her. “Please don’t leave me. I’ll be good, I promise, and we can be together, like we’re supposed to be.”

Mao is much bigger than her now. His grip is tight and desperate and he’s pressing his face into her shoulder. She can’t escape it, with his hands in her hair.

This conversation isn’t going anywhere. C.C. runs through her options while he strokes her hair and nuzzles into her, eyes blank as they stare into the wall behind him.

“Okay, Mao, listen to me,” she says quietly. “I won’t go right now, okay? I’ll stay a little while longer.”

But Mao hears _I won’t go, I’ll stay._ That’s all he needs to hear.

(It’s all he wants to hear.)

They sleep together in the farmhouse. Mao is pressing close to her, an arm securely around her waist, holding, protecting. His body conforms to her shape, spooning her. Like a lover, like they’re married like in his fantasies. His love is a like a vice; it’s secure but possessive. She’ll never get her wish while he’s around.

C.C. takes a calculated risk.

She leaves in the night. She twists from his grip, careful, calculated. The way she always has been. She leaves him the headphones, placing them over his ears so she can sneak away. She’s gone long before dawn, no traces.

Mao wakes, scared, alone, betrayed. Surely, this was a test, and C.C. would come back soon. C.C. was just playing with him, testing his loyalty and his love. C.C. would never hurt him on purpose.

But she doesn’t come back soon, she doesn’t come back ever. And then it crashes down, and then he falls apart.

C.C. fed him poison; she can’t blame him that now he’s infected. If Mao was a monster, she made him this way. He didn’t care if he was a monster. C.C. was a lovely little monster too, for what she did.

Mao plans to feed her poison too, brew it in a little caldron for his beautiful little witch. He’ll search the whole world for her if he has to, he’ll make anyone do whatever he wants. Stupid people, all their thoughts on display. He’s been hearing his whole life the capable things people do when they’re in love, what they’ll do when they’re angry. It won’t be easy, but he’ll get his vengeance and his bride.

Mao wants to find out if she’s really immortal.

\--

It disgusts him so much when Lelouch said those awful little lies.

_C.C. belongs to me now. I’ve seen parts of her you never got to see._

Mao hates Lelouch. He hates Lelouch so much he fantasizes taking the chainsaw to his throat instead.

How could he say something like that about his princess? C.C. was _his,_ would always _be his_. C.C. was the one who loved and took care of him. C.C. didn’t belong to his _brat._ What would she see in him anyway? Nothing.

She would never… she would never show him her body like that. That tone of voice, that smirk he could almost _taste,_ he couldn’t mean anything else. He’s so disgusting. C.C. wouldn’t even sleep with _him,_ the one who loved her the most. How could she do it with this _boy,_ this stranger? No, no, no, he’s just being _nasty._

He’s a liar and he’s rotten but he can’t help but get angry. It gets right under his skin, hits him right in the place it would hurt the most like a little infected splinter. He wants to make him shut up.

(Because what if he’s right? What if this arrogant nobody did have his C.C.? What if he had seen her?)

But it doesn’t matter. Because C.C. showed him so many other things and she was just being silly and testing him. She was being an awfully cruel little witch, wasn’t she? Like this was some big game to hurt people.

_Are you punishing me, Mao?_

It would seem like it, since she’s broken and bleeding and helpless. And he threatens to chop her up so he can take her on a plane – she’s making it so difficult right now – if she would just stop _pretending_ and come with him – but no.

Well.

Not yet, but it would be fair, wouldn’t it?

\----

C.C. is waiting for him outside the church. She really did come; she really is here for him!

Mao stumbles towards her, tries to speak. It’s all choked noises, helpless and pathetic. There are tears in his eyes as he tries to say something. But the Geass – he can’t – he can’t tell her –

“I really did love you, Mao,” C.C. says softly.

He forgives her, in that moment, nods. He grins widely, almost pure. It’s okay all the cruel things she did to him, the way she hurt him. He’s been awfully bad but that’s okay now. They can be together soon, she really did love him all this time.

“Wait for me, Mao, in my world,” she tells him. It’s still that soft voice, that soft voice that’s always been so kind to him.

Mao will wait for her; he’ll always wait for her. He loves her so much.

She aims the gun under his chin, puts the silencer against his neck where his pulse point is, pulls the trigger.

She doesn’t flinch to the blood splatter; she doesn’t recoil with the gun.

No amount of Britannian medical science can bring him back now. He’s really dead this time; she knew she would have to be the one to do it.

C.C. had bred a rabid dog and thus had to put him down. But she was the bitch that bred him, the one that infected him. He was sick but she doesn’t blame him. What else could an evil witch have made in her cottage, but a monster out of a child?

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about C.C. and a lot of them are not happy. She fucked Mao right up. 
> 
> fic title is from "Snow White Queen" by Evanescence.


End file.
